Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins
Channel 4
★★★☆☆
Where on God’s green earth will Matt Hancock’s penchant for public humiliation take him next? Having just watched him being ridiculed by the hardmen in Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins while wearing a slight smirk that suggested he really quite enjoyed it, I dread to think.
We have seen him eat a sheep’s vagina in Australia, pretend to be Ken from the Barbie film on TikTok and now we are watching him being punched in the face by an ex-footballer in Vietnam. Just after being bullied by ex-special forces operators screaming: “You’re running like a f***ing ostrich” (I’d say it was more “meerkat” but let’s not split hairs). I worry that the logical next step for the former health secretary could be a live-streamed thrashing in a madam’s dungeon, and I think we have already suffered enough.
But Hancock hasn’t. He seems to love being belittled. You could see it on his face when he was laughed at for somersaulting through the parallel bars during a vertigo test like a toddler at Tumble Tots and duly called a “complete and utter buffoon”. And when he was brought in for interrogation with a bag over his head and mocked for being caught on camera groping a bottom that didn’t belong to his wife. He loves the spotlight, good or bad. “I fell in love with someone,” he said yet again, eyes moistening before he added something weaselly about the guidance not being “legally binding by that point”.
“The point is that the guidance is the stuff you wrote,” said Foxy, one of the special forces soldiers. “Yeah, that is the point,” Hancock agreed, happily accepting the slapdown. He was told he had shown weak leadership in the pandemic and then to “shut the f*** up”. It was pretty damn hilarious to watch.
What does he hope to gain from all this? Obviously some kind of public atonement or cachet (he has let it be known that he broke a rib but bravely soldiered on). But why has he settled upon continual degradation as a plan? I actually felt sorry for him when he was punched repeatedly in the face by the former footballer Jermaine Pennant in the pouring rain, an organised fight in which the contestants were split into pairs and told to pummel each other. I know: weird. Hancock is so far getting a lot of airtime compared to the other 15 celebrities, who range from Melinda Messenger to the former rugby player Gareth Thomas, so the producers must consider him the biggest draw.
● Mark Billingham: An SAS salary was definitely tough enough
This is a modern strategy, I suppose, weaponising reality TV to create a loyal fan base à la Donald Trump. Perhaps it will come in handy if he ever seeks election again. Who knows, it might even work. Even though some of us see it simply as milking the teat of his former government position for appearance fees.
One thing I will say for Hancock is that behind the smirk, there’s a steely focus (as seen in I’m a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!). He must have the hide of a rhino. “I handled the pandemic, didn’t I?” he said loftily. “I’ve seen pressure so what I’m going to face on this course will be water off a duck’s back.” Hmm, we’ll see. But we should prepare ourselves for the real possibility that Hancock could do very well.
